Salt Lake Comic Con 2015 Summary

According to the founders, this year’s Salt Lake Comic Con had over 120,000 attendees, breaking their previous record. Thanks to better management the traffic moved smoothly and everyone was able to enter in a timely manner. Wider lanes in the main hall meant less congestion, and overall it was a very smooth event. SLCC also broke the Guinness World Record for having the most comic book costumed characters assembled in the same place. Which I guess… is something.

Here is a short summary of the panels I attended.

Designing the Starships of Star Trek Panel

This panel was hosted by John Eaves.

John Eaves is a designer and illustrator best known for his work on the Star Trek franchise, starting with Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. He served as a production illustrator on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Enterprise and was involved in all four Next Generation movies, specifically being responsible for the design of the Sovereign-class Enterprise-E. He also worked on a variety of films, such as Top Gun, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Valkyrie and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. – Wikipedia

John Eaves showed a number of design art pieces from Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Generations, First Contact, and Nemesis, and all three of the new Star Trek films. One thing that was interesting to me was when he said they used to receive a full script of the show or film, but with the secrecy today they only receive a 4 page summary of the parts they need to work on. He said he did a lot of design work for a character named Alice, only to later learn that it was Kahn in Into Darkness. ~

At the end of the panel he said he didn’t only work on Star Trek. He said that he had just finished working on Captain America: Civil War, and that he would be starting on Guardians of the Galaxy 2 on Monday, September 28th.

~ Some of these details may have come from the State of Trek: Looking Ahead to Star Trek at 50 Panel, I can’t necessary remember.

Ian Somerhalder Panel

I can’t tell you much about this panel, other than it started 30 minutes late (making it only 20 minutes total). Ian Somerhalder finally appeared on stage, answered a few questions, and departed.

Con Man Web Series: Sneak Peek Panel

The panel opened with guests Felicia Day, Sean Astin, and P.J. Haarsma. Alan Tudyk, who was on location in London for an unnamed role in the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens movie, was meant to participate live via Skype. When the time came to get him connected, he suddenly appeared on stage. The audience went wild.

Wray Nerely (Tudyk) is a struggling actor who starred as a spaceship pilot on Spectrum, a canceled science fiction series that went on to become a cult classic. Wray’s good friend Jack Moore (Nathan Fillion), who starred as the ship’s captain, has become an A-list movie star. Frustrated by Jack’s success and his lack thereof, Wray travels the science fiction convention circuit, makes appearances at comic book stores, and visits pop culture events. He navigates the odd people and incidents he encounters along the way while learning to love the fans he has. – Wikipedia

The panel showed two clips and premiered a trailer for Con Man. Based on those clips, it looks like a very funny series. The series is available on Vimeo on Demand starting September 30th.

Disney Infinity 3.0 Panel

I asked if any of the playsets deviated from movie events, and if so, were their stories canon. I received this reply:

The TWILIGHT OF THE REPUBLIC PLAY SET is a completely new story which went through all the approvals and is considered canon along side the movies, cartoons, and recent novels.

The panel also gave away 900 free Disney Infinity 3.0 characters to the participants of the panel. I received a Darth Vader figure. Later I came back and saw they hadn’t given them all away, I asked why not and the man behind the counter said they’d probably have extras, so he gave me a second figure, Sam Flynn, from Tron Legacy.

The Enterprise-D model was so front heavy it was difficult to get good crane shots of it moving at angles. The sleek look of Enterprise-E took this into consideration to make it more balanced. (Eventually not an issue, because everything is CG now).